Australia Post Retail and eParcel

Overview

This document will outline how to setup Australian Post retail and Australia Post eParcel carriers in ShipperHQ. You will need certain credentials that will allow ShipperHQ to connect to the Australian Post servers and obtain a rate quote. This article covers gathering the info you need, installing the carrier, and info on how to best manage your connection between ShipperHQ and Australian Post.

Requirements

Follow these directions to obtain:

  • A registered account with Australia Post PAC API
  • Your Australia Post Account Number
  • Your Australia Post API Key

Register for Australia Post Carrier Credentials

  1. Go to the Australia Post Developer Centre, create an account. Note: If already registered, or have a MyPost account, please login with those details.
  2. Register for the Shipping & Tracking APIs
    1. Click on the ‘Register your interest today’ link.
    2. Ensure you specify your account number(s), separated by commas (you can specify a large list in the comments field in the last step)
    3. If you are adding account(s) to an existing key, please specify this including the key you wish the account(s) to be added to, in the comments field in the last step
    4. Specify your platform partner as “ShipperHQ” in the second step of the registration process
  3. Wait for confirmation email and then follow the steps as provided

Steps To Add This Carriers

  1. Go to the Carriers page in the ShipperHQ dashboard
  2. Click + New to add a new carrier
  3. Select Live Rate Carrier
  4. Search for and select the carrier you want to add
  5. Name this carrier (this name will be the name your customers see in the Checkout.)
  6. Success! This carrier has now been added to your list of carriers in ShipperHQ.
  7. You may now proceed to Validate your Australian Post carrier (instructions are in the following section), or you can skip this step and choose to validate your carrier at another time. If you choose to skip validation you can begin to configure your carrier’s settings right away.

Steps to Validate This Carrier

In order for your live rate carrier to access your live rates, you will need to enter your carrier account credentials for the carrier and have them validated.

Validation, simply means that ShipperHQ was able to access the shipping account related to the credentials that you entered and retrieve rates.

If you choose to skip validation after adding your new carrier you will be reminded to add your credentials later.

  1. To validate, select Enter Credentials & Validate
  2. Enter the Australia Post Account Number and API Key
  3. Click Continue when complete.
    Note: Successful installation depends on the accurate entry of the account information required by each carrier. If you do not have the correct information you will not be able to validate your carrier and receive live rates. 

    eParcel Special Notes:
    Once you have added Australia Post eParcel, you will need to select the exact methods associated with your account regarding with Signature or without. In order to successfully provide rates, ShipperHQ will need to match your contracted methods.
    Select the Australia Post Retail and eParcel methods to use in ShipperHQ
    Additionally, Australia Post eParcel requires at least two of the dimensions (length, width, or height) to be a minimum of 5 centimeters, otherwise the carrier will return an error. In order for dimensions to be passed to the carrier the Dimensional Shipping Feature should be enabled. To use a default box, after enabling the Dimensional Shipping feature, create a new box of 5x5x5 Centimeters with no maximum weight. If the majority of boxes are in Inches, then you will want to use the converted value of 1.97 X 1.97 X 1.97 inches. Next, navigate back to the eParcel carrier and, under Package Settings set the “Default Packing Box” to the newly-created box. This will meet the minimum dimensions for all products, regardless of whether the products have dimensions. If the Dimensional Packing feature is not enabled, ShipperHQ will send the required, minimum dimensions to the carrier. These will be set automatically to 5 X 5 X 5 Centimeters.

  1. If validation is successful, you will be presented with:
    1. The option to enable your carrier right away. (Enabling your carrier at this time will turn its rates on immediately even before you have made any configuration adjustments to it.)
    2. Begin to configure. Continuing with this button will take you to the carrier’s configuration page. You can also enable the carrier from this page once you have saved your settings.
      Enable to activate Australia Post Retail and eParcel in ShipperHQ
  2. Alternatively, if validation fails, see our troubleshooting section below for help. Also, remember, you can skip your validation for now and continue to configure your carrier. The credentials that you have already entered will be saved and you will be reminded later to validate your carrier.

Note: Australia Post eParcel Multi-Package rating

Au Post eParcel will not return rates if you have a shipment(s) exceeding the maximum per package weight of 22Kgs that is allowed for that carrier unless you tick the option of “Calculate handling fees and fuel surcharges more accurately” on the carrier basic tab.

Please also note that ticking that box will enable city field on the cart estimator which in addition to the postal code being sent in the request ShipperHQ will also utitlize eParcel’s latest API which will return more accruate rates by correctly including handling fees, fuel surcharges, etc. To manage this field, edit the carrier’s Basic Tab > Account Settings.

Option to use handling fees for Australia Post Retail and eParcel in ShipperHQ

Troubleshooting

Your carrier can be installed and configured, but not validated. Successful validation depends on the accurate entry of the account information required by each carrier. If you do not have the correct information you will not be able to validate your carrier and receive live rates.

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